Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Thursday February 25, 2010 @11:53AM
from the we-need-more-tang dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A Senate science subcommittee clashed with NASA's chief on Wednesday, saying the agency and the White House lacked a clear vision and goal for the program. Skeptical senators told the space agency that it should not just talk about plans, but set out to do something specific. Lawmakers expressed a bipartisan opposition to the agency's plans and the initiatives of the Obama White House."Updated 23:13 GMT by timothy: Reader Trent Waddington contributes this video link to the hearing, if you want to come to your own conclusions.

For me it's as simple as survival. As long as humanity is confined to a single planet, we're vulnerable to being wiped out by a planetary scale disaster. Move some of us to a self-sufficient base on Mars, and even if Earth turns back into molten slag, humanity will continue to exist.

Exploring the bottom of our oceans doesn't accomplish that goal. I do agree it's a worthy goal, but if we are to decide where to expend limited resources, they should go towards the goal of ensuring the survival of the species.

Once we inhabit other planets in the solar system, the very next goal needs to be interstellar colonization to guard against a solar system level catastrophe. Even if that means pursuing the use of generational ships to do it.

For me it's as simple as survival. As long as humanity is confined to a single planet, we're vulnerable to being wiped out by a planetary scale disaster. Move some of us to a self-sufficient base on Mars, and even if Earth turns back into molten slag, humanity will continue to exist.

Out of curiosity, why is the survival of the human race so important?

I mean, I really want to know... what is the foundation of the idea that the human race must survive at all costs? Why should we not accept that if the eart

Evolutionary psychology? Living organisms are driven to perpetuate the species. It makes sense that there would be a powerful inbuilt need in humans to achieve goals rationalized as ensuring the survival of the species.
I know that I for one sometimes stop and look around at the truly extraordinary things humanity has accomplished over our brief span on earth. We can bend the environment around us almost to our will, we can travel around the world in a day or so and many more impressive feats. Is there som

Why is the survival of life so important? Because as far as we know, humanity is the one and only chance for some of the earths biodiversity to ultimately survive. It took maybe more than half of the earths history for sentient life to arise, if it gets wiped out what are the odds it will happen again? Stewards indeed. On the other hand if you are content to see all life as we know it wiped out, theres not much more that can be said.

Are we that important to the galaxy or the universe that the survival of the human race is of such paramount importance? Seems like a bit of hubris to me.

The galaxy and earth in general are pretty hostile places. Why should we care what they think?

To answer your underlying question, if you're a nihilist, then nothing has meaning and there's no reason to do anything. If, however, you find some meaning in existence, then it's fairly easy to extrapolate that the existence of others also has meaning, and it's a worthwhile goal to ensure that "others" will be able to continue existing for as long as possible.

So it's an issue to be dismissed, not worthy of consideration or discussion?

I never said that, I said it's a question that fundamentally can not be answered.

Because I exist, and that is enough. It is an imperative that I be able to continue to exist of my own free will, which requires consumption of resources, so long as I do not needlessly infringe upon that right in others.

Why is it imperative that you continue to exist? What gives you this right of free will? Why is it imperative that you do so without

For me it's as simple as survival. As long as humanity is confined to a single planet, we're vulnerable to being wiped out by a planetary scale disaster.

Okay, but we're a long, looong way from having 100% completely self-sufficient off-world colonies that it doesn't even make sense to start. The chain of technologies necessary to allow a human to survive in space is ridiculously long and at the moment completely infeasible to implement outside of the hospitable environment of our home planet. And that eve

How about a declaration that within a decade we'll have a space infrastructure that can actually support multiple goals at once, including LEO tourism, NEO mining, a Mars and Moon landing, and deep space exploration. Not saying NASA shouldn't be doing pure science, but I feel we're to the point now where the infrastructure is more important, at least if we ever want space exploration and exploitation to become commonplace.

Of course, that is essentially what the White House's new innitiative is saying, they

What's the point of putting people on Mars? Spirit did more than any manned mission could

Totally false. I single person with a rover could have done in a day what spirit has done during it's whole mission. A human can make quicker and easier judgment calls about the terrain so they can travel further and faster without input from earth. A human could have driven Spirits entire path in a day on something no fast than a golf cart. A human can make fast judgment calls about what's interesting and want needs further investigation. A human can clean the dust off the solar cells and not have to rely on dust devils. A human can walk places the rover can't physically go. A human can conduct research at the site and doesn't have to rely on a few very specialized instruments that were put on board. Humans can fix broken or flaky equipment.
But ultimately, I think the real point of putting people on Mars is that it's our nature to expand into new territories and discover new things. There is no more unclaimed space on our planet. At some point we need to figure out how to live beyond the earth. These are just first baby steps. We have the desire to walk on two feet (at least some of us do), it's instinctual, but we can't quite do it yet. We keep falling down, but we keep trying because something deep inside us is driving us. You're like the baby who looks at the one trying to walk and tells him he's wasting his time because it's easier to crawl.

Yes, if we could get a person to Mars fast enough (need undeveloped technology), cheap enough (need technology about 1000x cheaper than now), and keep him alive on the trip and on mars and on the trip back (need undeveloped technology), a human with a rover could outperform the robot we did send.

Also, you perhaps overestimate what a human can accomplish under those conditions. The human will need to tote around life support equipment. He will be in a pressure suit, which really drops mobility and productivity. Also, repairing equipment under those conditions mostly means clearing jams and swapping in spare parts.

And last, the human can't hang around for months and months while scientists back home digest data and decide the best place to send him next. Accumulated radiation dose will do him in first.

Question is, with all that technological development needed to send a human, couldn't we just send a better robot instead with the same resources? And wouldn't that better robot technology help us in 1000's of other ways?

Make a declaration that the US will land on Mars before this decade is out, provide the funding, and it can be done.

of course. history is full of amazing progress that was achieved when everything depended on success and therefore societies were willing to throw unlimited amounts of money and resources at the problem.

the problem is that nothing depends on putting a man on mars. everything that we can achieve through that can be done faster and cheaper with robotic missions. it servers no scientific purpose. it also doesn't really serve a national pride purpose. it'd be nice, but no other country is close to accomplishing

Of course, this won't happen at all. And these agencies are supposed to be filled with the smart people? Yeah, well i can walk on water and summon plagues out of my ass.

NASA is filled with smart people. The problem is that it works with a budget and mandates from Congress, which is full of mediocre-intelligence people who really don't care that much about accomplishing anything great, only about their own personal power and wealth. And these Congresspeople are elected by people who are mostly complete morons.

For those of you who've watched the Senate hearing video [youtube.com] that QuantumG linked to, there's this rather bizarre part where Sen. Vitter (R-La) made some insinuations that Bolden wasn't actually involved in the planning, but it was all supposedly done by his deputy Lori Garver. The Orlando Sentinel has some follow-up on this, with sources reporting that ATK (one of the primary contractors on the Ares I rocket) had put up the Senator to make those attacks:

The attacks on NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver spearheaded by Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter during a hearing on Wednesday on the 2011 NASA budget have badly backfired, according to a range of sources.

Vitter accused Garver -- who was not present at the hearing -- of orchestrating the cancellation of Constellation. He also seemed to suggest that Garver was running the agency, and not Administrator Charlie Bolden. Bolden later called Vitter's comment "unfair."

Not only were administration outraged by Vitter's remarks but several female civil servants and women executives in aerospace companies who have known Garver for years felt compelled to send their complaints to senate staff Wednesday afternoon.

Several sources on the Hill, in industry and inside the Obama administration blame rocket maker ATK, the developer of the Ares I rocket first stage, for putting Vitter up to the attack. Sources say that complaints have been sent to ATK and so far there has been no response.

In the meantime, members of the Senate and the House said they were going to refrain from any further personal attacks as they move against the White House's proposed 2011 budget for the space agency.

If the President of the United States doesn't care about space exploration, as is apparently the case today, then NASA will be unable to fulfill its mission. Obama has had little interest in space from day one; his campaign plan even had a proposal to gut NASA's budget to pay for a nationalized day care system. Later this proposal was deleted, but Obama has really done nothing with the U.S. space program but cut its budget.

Shutting down the only manned space project on the horizon, Obama proposed to offload low orbital manned flights to the private sector. While the libertarian and free marketer in me loves the idea of a competitive market for space travel, I'm not convinced it's time yet for NASA to leave that arena.

Every manned launch is a huge, critical path project requiring hundreds of technicians and engineers to monitor every aspect of the situation. Is it really appropriate to dump all of these people and hope that several privately held companies (one hopes American ones) can step up to the plate and recreate all of that expertise and best practices almost from scratch? Even if they hired all of these soon-to-be-unemployed aerospace experts, they would still need to put in a few years to build up the kind of institutional memory and procedures, not to mention physical infrastructure, that are required for a complex project like this.

NASA was building the next generation Orion manned spacecraft and Obama announced that he may not fund it. Congress, ESPECIALLY one that gets a few more Republican members in the 2012 election cycle, can override him and restore funding, but realistically the President has the power and means to kill a program if he doesn't like it. He can appoint a schmuck to replace the executive director, for example, and he can argue that the money for NASA would be better spent on school lunch for poor kids, or building shelters for the homeless, or any number of similar but meaningless populist mouthings that make great TV sound bites.

We probably will have to wait for a change of government before we can get back to having a NASA with vision AND the backing to make it a reality. Sitting around, waiting for the "right technology" to be developed, and then saying we can finally think about realistically exploring Mars--that's not a bold vision, that's a cop-out.

[R]ealistically the President has the power and means to kill a program if he doesn't like it. He can appoint a schmuck to replace the executive director, for example, and he can argue that the money for NASA would be better spent on school lunch for poor kids, or building shelters for the homeless, or any number of similar but meaningless populist mouthings that make great TV sound bites.

Which seems like a fine argument for NASA to move to the private sector. Privately funded by corporations with a profit motive.

If you look back to the exploration of the last frontier, I think you'll find that greed was the single greatest force contributing to its success. For example, would the West have seen nearly the same amount of interest without any gold rush of any kind?

Unfortunately for us, a profit motive for going into space might not exist. Honestly, though, if that's the case, then maybe it

Sure, it's leading to a place you happen to disagree with going to -- but going up against all the congresscritters getting jobs (and thus votes) off the Constellation program is unquestionably a gutsy move.

Moreover, I think it's the right one. Getting private investment into the business of shuttling things in and out of orbit and freeing up NASA's resources for "leaner, meaner" scientific work is exactly the right place to be going. Look at what kind of ROI we've gotten on the rovers; if NASA is going to be doing science, let them do science rather than being forever in the overpriced transport business.

don't blame obama. the incredible, astounding debt that this country has racked up under the leadership of the people *we* elected is to blame. obama might end up being a terrible president, but you can't blame him for things that happened before he was in office.

at least he's realistic, unlike bush jr. that made wild claims about sending a man to mars in a completely unrealistic time frame unless of course you were willing to throw money at it like the future of the human race depended upon its success. manned spaceflight is really a silly idea. it serves no scientific purpose at this point in our development and costs hundreds of times more than robotic spaceflight.

I can't believe the grandstanding coming out of the US government nowadays. From berating car company executives for flying in their jets (no, they should buy multi-million dollar jets and just let them rot), to coming down on Toyoda as if he were the embodiment of all evil (yeah, US manufacturers NEVER had recalls. I have yet to see the Toyota equivalent of the Ford Pinto), and now NASA.

Oh we took away all your funding and tied you up in red tape, but now we will complain that you lack vision and have not made any progress! It's NASA's fault for literally not delivering the moon, on a budget that would be barely noticed by an average defense contractor. Because it's ok to pour $65 billion into F-22's, the 140+ million dollar planes that always seem to be in the shop (68% readiness you know if I paid $140 million I want the damned thing to work), but no additional funding is required to move forwards in space exploration (the NASA budget has been fairly constant at all time lows since 1993).

It's the politicians in the US that need fixing. They didn't listen when the public said "no" to more war. They didn't listen when the public said "no" to the bailouts. They didn't listen when the public said "no" to the stimulus. There's a pattern here. "Voting" isn't going to change anything... real democracy died a long time ago, victim to the two party system set up by special interests.

Politics: The fine art of pretending you are important, while you do little more than criticize others for not doing anything.

America started to cede its position as the world power in space exploration as soon as it had buy-in to the system. Every time something goes wrong in a NASA mission and people die, or expensive equipment explodes, it can no longer be a learning process for the organization. Instead, it becomes a negative PR statement and, since American's know their tax dollars pay for it, they bitch like they were just robbed. As a result, budgets are cut. Politicians pretend to be engineers and enforce design decisions through budgets and political grandstanding. NASA becomes scared because, well, little by little it gets killed off. And, as a result, the space program stagnates.

As long as the American public perceives itself to have buy-in or ownership or stock in NASA's going-ons, the organization will remain to risk adverse to do anything truly stupendous anymore. The reason we were able to put a man on the moon in 1969 was because, at the time, the space program was new and mysterious. The American public didn't feel it had much buy-in over the system. All in all, it was a pissing match with the Russians so any ownership the tax payer did feel it had over the program was justifiable as it meant we have bigger space penes than the USSR. Nowadays, though, the organization neither has the freedom or elbow room to do real engineering and take real risks. Without risk, there is no progress.

a-f'ing-men brother. Now the most far reaching plans can only be 4 years as you now the next administration will screw with what has already been decided. At least Kennedy proposed something that we stuck to for a while. Even then the program was cut short.

The problem is that a NASA project is long term, while a Senator only sees mid term. The space shuttle development ran from the late 60's to the first launch in 1981. Even Apollo was a seven year program, one year longer than the term of a senator. This means that most are looking for the pork they can send home this year and in the next few years, while NASA needs to be funded long term. The problem with Constellation is that it was funded in 2005, and years after Columbia disintegrated. If it would have funded fully in 2004, with a deadline of 2013, maybe we could have done it. Or else had some vision that STS was ending, and funded it in 2000 with the installation of the conservative government that apparently is so dedicated to space exploration.

Then, of course, there is the pork. Representative Olsen, not of the senate, has voting against the economic stimulus package, which consensus seems to indicate that it has stopped the hemorrhaging of jobs, and now he is complaining that a few thousand government employees are going to lose their jobs. What is it Pete? Do we want to balance the budget or keep support a federal jobs program where the average salary is over 70K a year? Sure the NASA jobs are great, but the budget is the budget. These jobs and ancillary costs could save over a billion a year. I know that Clear Lake is the probably the most federally subsidized place in America, but we really need real jobs based on capitalism, not socialism.

NASA and White House officials were criticized for drafting plans that called for new propulsion systems without linking them to timelines for manned space missions.

This is a completely backwards way of thinking. New propulsion systems are vastly more valuable than any specific space mission. Advanced propulsion systems could take the most difficult mission we might attempt today and turn it into a routine trip.

We need a willingness to develop new technologies that might take more than a few years to pay off, and even try things that might not work at all. We should tie this work to a specific goal in order to provide focus and to justify the price, but the real prize is the technology itself. Reducing fuel mass or cost to orbit by a factor of ten would open up the solar system to us.

The biggest problem with having a specific mission in mind, like say "land an astronaut on Mars in 20 years", is that to actually implement such an ambitious mission you have to start making decisions today that tie you into a particular technology development path. You would have to take existing technology, and figure out what could be improved or created to accomplish the specific task set out in the time frame set out. Not only would this limit the development of NASA to that specifi

"We should develop the technology in pursuit of a goal, not the other way around," said senator Bill Nelson of Florida.

We adapted rocketry from military applications originally so the senator does not have his technology development path quite right. Working on solar system-scale propulsion does have an implicit goal of extending exploration beyond LEO but it is not necessary to name the first asteroid target to further the work since the problem is sufficiently generic. It is my experience that senator

Why do so many people think that if there isn't a NASA plan to put a couple NASA astronauts on a NASA rocket and launch them to a specific NASA-picked destination by a specific time that we've somehow abandoned human spaceflight? How short-sighted can people be? We already did that 40 years ago, and where did it get us? The huge expense caused the cancellation of any real followup missions and damaged human spaceflight aspirations to this day. We're still seeing the effects, since apparently no one in congress (or much of the public, apparently) can imagine anyone except NASA putting people into space.

It just pisses me off to no end. We need a space program that opens access to space for EVERYONE. Not just the few lucky NASA picked government employees. Do you want to go into space at some point? I certainly do, and constellation had zero chance of ever letting me do that. Maybe you think constellation would have opened access to space and expanded the possibilities for the rest of us, but I think you are wrong. So, so wrong. The current plan for NASA has the best chance of anything NASA has done since its creation of truly opening access to space. New technologies, reducing cost, encouraging multiple options for access to orbit. That's what NASA's goal should be and needs to be. Not a repeat of Apollo. Not another huge expense for flags, footprints, and some neat video that ends up getting 5 minutes on the evening news.
So there's my rant. Take it or leave it.

Today if you had a launch vehicle, you couldn't do anything with it. Why is there (almost) no private launch capability in the US? Simple, really. First you need a license from the FAA - if it goes up in the air, they have to license it. It would be really a shame if you hit a Airbus with your nice shiny rocket. The actual chances of that happening are probably about 1 in a million. Still, they want you to have a

saying the firm and the White House lacked a clear vision and goal for the program

I thought NASA's mission was to explore space? The goal would then be furthering our knowledge about the universe. Sure, they may be lacking in short term goals, but they most definitely have a long term one...

This isn't a teenage drag race to the finish. It doesn't matter who gets on the moon again, or to Mars first. That stuff is trivial showboating..How about "Put people in sustainable near earth artificial environments?" or "Build space based solar power generators?" or "Mine asteroids for rare earth metals" or "Build satellite based universally available internet" or *anything* else that doesn't involve us dropping to the bottom of yet *another* barren gravity well, grabbing our genitalia and shouting "Firs

NASA does lots of cool stuff - research and science on both earth and the rest of the universe. I happen to think manned space flight is very cool, but I'm getting more and more frustrated that NASA is seen as only manned space flight*, or that space research has to include manned space flight to be worthwhile.

If a congressman doesn't think NASA has any goals or program direction, it means he or she hasn't looked beyond putting people on a ship to [insert non-earth destination].

* this problem has plagued NASA for decades - manned spaceflight sucks up the bulk of funds, despite having a relatively low science per dollar quotient. It's good for marketing, though.

Senators Blast NASA For Lacking Vision...
Skeptical senators told the space agency that it should not just talk about plans, but set out to do something specific.

Pot. Stop trash-talking Kettle. Seriously. If any group should simply STFU and actually *do* something productive, it's the Senate - both Democrats and Republicans (withholding my personal political commentary on each party). This would be funnier excepting reality.

Disclaimer: I work for the space program, but I'm not high enough to make these decisions.

Some people will never be happy. All the dreams of the last 50 years are about to come true, and all people can do is bitch!

Look, chemical powered rockets have not changed much since the development of the SSME. So why are we only now getting private space launch? Because there was nowhere reasonable to go! ISS cargo is an easy enough mission for non-cutting edge rocketry, and since it is manned there is a long term need for supply flights that won't go away.

The future looks like this:1. NASA guarantees it be buy x flights at y price from now until 2020.2. Multiple vendors (currently SpaceX, Orbital, Lockheed, Boeing, and others) use this promise to secure capital to develop launchers.3. Several years of regular supply flights gives ample qualification of the new boosters.4. Once confidence is gained, NASA transitions from buying human flights from Russians to buying flights from Americans. Lots of politicians get reelected.5. All the tech for better than chemical rocket launch now has a concrete mission to design for. Someone perfects laser ablative launch of cargo to ISS and does it much cheaper. Someone else gets an even cheaper launch option going.6. NASA works on designs for solar system manned exploration craft. Design is steady and largely free from political pressure.7. Private cargo launch matures, and one day both it and the NASA designs are ready.8. ISS, which is now a largely private operation, is sold off or deorbited at its end of life.9. NASA (and hell, maybe even private spacecraft) launch on commercial boosters and usher in a new era.

Look, promises smomishes. Unfunded mandates scmuded fandates. This is the ONLY way to get beyond LEO in a sustained manner by the 2050s ( when I will retire). You all should be overjoyed.

We're full of anti-intellectual skeptics now. You really think the endeavors of a scientific arm of the government is going to get the funding it needs for whiz bang cutting edge programs? American Idol is on.

That's what all of this grandstanding is about. Vision? Bullshit! It's about jobs and votes back home. I'm sick of this fucking hypocrisy. Building an industry based on government handouts is stupid to begin with. They should consider themselves lucky to have made any money at all. The new plan for NASA is realistic and reasonable and these senators should go fuck themselves.

"Advanced Automation for Space Missions"http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/ [islandone.org]"""What follows is a portion of the final report of a NASA summer study, conducted in 1980 by request of newly-elected President Jimmy Carter at a cost of 11.7 million dollars. The result of the study was a realistic proposal for a self-replicating automated lunar factory system, capable of exponentially increasing productive capacity and, in the long run, exploration of the entire galaxy within a reasonable timeframe. Unfortunately, the proposal was quietly declined with barely a ripple in the press. What was once concievable with 1980's technology is now even more practical today. Even if you're just skimming through this document, the potential of this proposed system is undeniable. Please enjoy."""

Ultimately, we will ideally end up with self-replicating space habitats that can duplicate themselves from sunlight and materials from the moons or asteroids of the solar system. There is enough relatively easily accessible materials to make habitats for trillions of people, probably quadrillions of people, and their associate biospheres. After we do that, then we can get back to talking about "Peak Oil" and limits to growth.:-)

You do realize that the plans were unworkable, the designs flawed, and the very engineers for them introduced alternative designs which could be produced sooner/faster/cheaper. Look up "Ares V Base Heating Issue" sometime.
The management at NASA and the special interests behind key areas kept pushing for Constellation due to it's huge R&D budget, despite the laws of physics which stated that it would never work with the designs as/is. And Obama pulled the plug on the dead-man-walking. It was obvious 5 years ago that this would happen, which is why NASA's engineers "moonlighted" and introduced the DIRECT launch design.Here [directlauncher.com] is what they proposed. It could be ready from approval to launch within 36 months, as it is based on existing technologies *and* it has already passed PDR. If it looks familiar to you space nuts, you might remember it as the Regan-era National Launch System. Now it is called Jupiter.

Am I seeing this right? I see an Apollo module strapped on top of a Shuttle fuel tank, with Apollo rockets sticking out of the bottom of it, and it has two of the Shuttles booster strapped to the sides.

No, I think it's actually an enlarged Apollo module and maybe a cargo module on top of a Shuttle fuel tank, with Shuttle main engines on the bottom of it, and Shuttle boosters strapped to the sides.

Apollo's F1 engines used kerosene, whereas the Shuttle's main engines use LOX and liquid H2, IIRC, so the two aren't really compatible, plus it's unlikely they'd go back to kerosene after already having the infrastructure in place for the newer fuels. Finally, the SSMEs (Space Shuttle Main Engines) are already developed and tested, so it's not hard to simply make more, or reuse the ones they already have. Building more F1 Apollo engines would probably be a big challenge since they haven't made any in decades and the plans are probably lost in a file cabinet somewhere, and all the fixtures and such are gone.

It's a perfectly sensible design, unlike an entirely-new design like the Ares. It reuses components that already exist and are highly tested and perfected, and simply jettisons the Orbiter and replaces it with a new capsule on top. It should be cheap and easy to build, unlike the Ares, and shouldn't have any problems except maybe for the capsule part, since that's the only new part.

Ok so you feel that you need to throw away a working system and start from scratch then? DIRECT leverages existing infrastructure and existing designs.

your idea is the same as Ford deciding to release a new F150 pickup truck but abandoning using Steel and internal combustion engines as well as wheels.

It's really dumb to redesign it all with fancy new pie in the sky technology. Use what works and get it in place fast. Why set your self up for a 2 year delay because of a problem that needs to be corrected? The SRB's and current tech works and works well no problems to have to design out. ALL DONE.

No, you completely miss my point. My point was the current Ares1/Ares5 systems are workable and the rest of the problem is essentially solved. Maybe Ares is sub-optimal but to assert that there are insoluble problems is just nonsense. It's the same problems we have solved time and time again.

NASA has spread around the work to the maximum number of congressional districts to maximize their political support. But ask those same congressmen what they are willing to give up...ask them how important it is to balance the budget and even...gasp..to begin paying off some debts..and they go quiet about what they want to give up...except to demand that the budget be balanced (but let someone else's district pay for it).

Obama puts a freeze on some agencies spending and already the constituencies are whining.

Where are politicians with guts who care more about the future of the country than getting elected with phony promises and posturing?

There aren't any. Not when Congress critters make more than the average American household (legally, who knows about back room/under the table dealings), get to vote on their own pay raises, and have no term limits. Where is the incentive to do anything besides make sure they get re-elected so they can keep getting paid and living in luxury? Especially when we as Americans keep people in office for decades and start to believe in family dynasties. (the Kennedy family for instance. When did political pos

Where are politicians with guts who care more about the future of the country than getting elected with phony promises and posturing?

That'll happen when the electorate becomes informed on the issues.

...Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah....

*wipes tears from his eyes and changes underwear*

You see, the bulk of the electorate is spoon fed information - over simplified information, I might add - about the issues from the electronic media because that's what sells. And the electorate ONLY wants information that fits in their World view. Fox News has this down to a science. Most people like it this way. Most people are ignorant and WANT to be so

Cuts to NASA are completely and utterly pointless as far as balancing the budget. NASA's represents less than half a percent of the federal budget. You could run NASA at current levels for 4 years on what the F-22 project alone has cost.

Where are politicians with guts who care more about the future of the country than getting elected with phony promises and posturing?

Where are the purple flying unicorns?

A politician cannot get elected to the highest offices unless they prioritize getting (re-)elected over achieving meaningful progress. This is why there are no politicians with the fortitude to do what must be done. And if one somehow manages to claw his way to the top and get elected to Congress, he is quickly marginalized by the deadbeat politicians who dominate the system. He'll slowly be brought into the system, as he willingly trades away his ideals in order to get something done, one small step at a time.

Our culture disembowels those who wish to maintain principles while in office. But we put them there... we vote on 15-second sound-bites. We vote on who has better hair, who we'd rather our daughter date, who we'd like to imagine our fathers and grandfathers would look like if they weren't drunken whoring bastards (never mind the fact that many of those we elect ARE drunken whoring bastards -- they just don't look like it because they have an army of PR staff).

And the worst part of it -- for me -- those who do appear to have principles, who have a spine, too often are mired in a religious conservatism that I believe has no place in national politics. But I digress...

Its probably a more well thought out overall plan he had in mind. While the many successes achieved by groups like NASA are well worth celebrating, I share the dismay no doubt many people hold at recent and ongoing setbacks in the development of the future goals of space exploration. The central issuing facing Space groups, as I see it, is a lack of a single unified plan, a step by step global strategy to move mankind into space which takes account of commercial, economic, resource based and political realities, which is achievable within a reasonable timeframe. The piecemeal method of pushing progress forward is effective only insofar as there is public and governmental momentum in the area - something which has been falling off of late. In the face of such an environment, piecemeal efforts might not be as effective as otherwise.

What I would propose for the future, therefore, is the formulation of such a strategy, clearly laid out and with recognisable milestones, goals, estimated returns on investment, and timelines. I think that the provision of such a structure will remove the dependence space exploration has on fragmented projects and provide a key benefit that has so far been absent - direction, in cooperation with other national space agencies.

In addition to the points mentioned above, an official strategy group could talk to politicians and businesspeople in a language they can understand. One of the first goals after the strategy would be agreed upon would be to confirm its legitimacy at the international level, in the USA, EU, UN and other international forums. The next step would be to get an international fund set up in order to secure a set percentage of GDP of each nation (possibly only developed nations) to be put towards space exploration. Even if one thosandth of national GDP was set aside by each nation, that would come to some $60 billion annually, or several times the budget of the combined existing space agencies.

This would be similar to foreign aid funds, although probably of a lesser amount, and would instantly multiply the budget available to space exploration groups by a fairly serious amount. Legislation would also be needed in order to provide international tax incentives for corporations and governments to focus their efforts on areas that would be conducive to space exploration and resource realisation, even tangentially. Legislation for the open sharing of relevant information within existing intellectual property laws would also be needed to further coopeation between private and public organisations, plus and this a vital part of the effort, the standardisation of equipment and systems to make them interchangeable.

A few further points:
Why would my nation wish to contribute to this effort?
In addition to the well known issues of potentially life threatening hazards on earth, whether environmental, asteroid strikes, or contagion, and it is not a question of if but when they will recur - they have already happened many times previously - there is the question of the vast resources available in space. By contributing on an annual basis according to its means, each nation and its citizens has a legitimate claim on the unfathomable amount of raw material which can be accessed by a properly run space programme.

What would this Global Space Initiative involve?
This group and strategy would have several purposes.
1. To create a master strategy for the human colonisation of space, taking into account the many different social and economic factors that would be involved.

2. To identify key early technologies that would be needed to realise the strategy, provide funding to create these technologies, and pressure governments to provide legislative and taxation benefits to groups developing them. There are a wide array of scientific and engineering feats that must be overcome before the reality of space exploration is commonly available. These would include things like semi autonomous robotics in order to take advantage of

What you describe sounds like space communism, complete with a politburo and five year plans. How about we try a different strategy - let NASA open-source all of the technology that it has developed so far and see what the private industry can make of it. SpaceX and Virgin Galactic have already created launch systems independently. They could do much more if they had access to NASA's vast collections of information about what does and doesn't work for spaceflight.

How about we get back to the idea that if my tax dollars pay to develop it then it defaults to the public domain. That should include when it is developed by a third party contractor.

Then SpaceX and Virgin can do what they will AND NASA can do its thing.

The senate is still right. NASA needs a goal and it needs to be a goal that the public can get behind. NASA has devolved from a National program promoting the interests of the nation to scientific welfare catering to testing obscure theories.

Your over-thinking this. It is highly unlikely that this politician even read the plan (which he claims lacks any vision) that has been put on the table. So, would modifying the plan with a better vision or strategy or other additional elements really help? He will not read the new plan either.

For there to be a next wave, we have to make some fundamental scientific progress. E.g. a space elevator is not merely a matter of improved engineering, we need some real breakthroughs in material sciences.

Ah but therein lies the rub. Once we know what we are going to do up there (mine and refine available resources, extending to highly automated manufacturing) we have in fact got engineering goals which can be attained and used to build towards the milestones. For example, if we were to set up a LEO fuel dump, launched via cannon or similar mechanism, it would resolve many difficult problems by itself. Similarly, a railgun-type macrolauncher stretching for several tens of kilometers might divide launch costs

The problem here is clearly about the leadership changing priorities and budgets before anything gets finished.

The projects that NASA work on have long timelines, this is not compatible with budgets which change annually and where the govenment who holds the purse strings also often changes (as in this case) before the project is completed.

This is not too different in concept (but is admitedly different in scale) to software development where if priorities are allowed to change before projects are completed

NASA will work within the guidelines of the Congress approved budget appropriations it receives. Right now the President recommends increasing the NASA budget significantly during the next five years, while terminating immediate plans to return to the Moon. The current Presidential recommendations would strengthen our ability to move mass into LEO by commercializing it. Congress is under no obligation to go along with the President's recommendation, and if a majority will sign a bill that keeps Constella

It is difficult to make long term plans given that your budget changes (usually in a downward spiral) each year.

NASA has a number of mandates that they have to use their funding for. And then they have the proposals that they are told to work on ("Go to mars", "privatize everything", "minimize risk because it is bad publicity"..) These cost lots of $$. Given no budget they mainly turn into paper exercises.

The Apollo program cost about $145 billion in 2008 dollars (Wikipedia), and quite a lot more if you factor in the orbital programs (Mercury, Gemini) which led up to Apollo. That's not exactly peanuts. They only get about $18 billion a year right now.

Is that the same one that had the benefit of 50 years of NASA trial and error to help guide them in what does and does not work, not to mention the countless other organizations and researchers who made rocket propulsion of large vehicles practical?

The private Tier One spaceship cost between 20 and 30 million dollars... from scratch.

FYI, the craft was called SpaceShipOne. The program is called Tier One. Too bad neither compares with what the NASA programs are/were working on. To sum up:

1. Altitude. That 20-30 MM got to suborbital altitude only. How about going high enough to actually *get something done*?2. Duration. SpaceShipOne can only stay at altitude for a few minutes due to the ballistic nature of the final trajectory. How about staying long enough to *get something done*?3. Payload. SpaceShipOne has a max payload of some 2400 kg (in theory -- has not been tested), compared to 22,700 kg for the shuttle program, and projected 188,000 kg for LEO / 71,000 to the moon for the Constellation program. Even the Ares V Lite would carry 140,000 kg to LEO.4. Crew capacity. SpaceShipOne can carry three crew members only, compared to seven for the shuttle, and six for the Orion capsule.

If you want to compare cost of the programs, you need to compare utility as well. And Tier One is woeful in terms of anything other than a stepping stone for more ambitious programs.

If you want to compare the cost of Constellation and Orion to what Scaled Composites is doing, then you need to wait until we know the full cost of TierTwo, which is supposed to encompass LEO, and some of TierThree, which is rumored to encompass both lunar travel and interplanetary travel. Until then, kindly fasten your seatbelt before takeoff and enjoy the view, because commenting on cost of programs with disparate utility and goals is meaningless.

"from scratch" my ass. The "private" industry is riding on the coattails of about 70 years of government-financed rocket research. Let's see one of these "more efficient than the government" private entities finance a revolutionary technology on their own.